A Matter of Principle
by prepare4trouble
Summary: Marci bets Foggy he can't go a whole day without seeing. He can't not take the bet, it's a matter of principle.
_A/N - Kinkmeme prompt. Requester asked for Foggy stuck wearing a blindfold and Matt taking advantage. Second anon suggested this particular scenario, and I went with it.
Warning, here be very mild slash and het, because nobody can resist Foggy.  
_

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A Matter of Principle

"So… you and Matt."

Foggy looked up at Marci, who was laying semi-clothed on the bed, stomach down and pushed up on her elbows so that her nipples brushed the top of the sheets.

He waited for her to elaborate, but instead she smiled and rolled over onto her back.

"What about us?"

Marci shrugged. "I know you're sleeping with him."

"What? How?"

She smirked and shrugged her shoulders as she reached for a discarded t-shirt from the floor and pulled it on over her head. It was tight, and her nipples showed through the cotton. "I notice you're not denying it," she said.

Foggy looked away. They had never actually said they were exclusive, and he was pretty sure she was sleeping with another guy too, but he couldn't help feeling guilty at being caught out. "Are you pissed?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "Hardly. I've been waiting for it to happen since I met you both." She pulled her skirt back on, glanced in the mirror and ran a hand through her hair. She grinned. "Have you ever worn a blindfold while you're doing it?"

"What?" Foggy shook his head. "No, of course not."

Marci shrugged. "Maybe you should. You know, put you both on an equal footing…"

"Weird, Marci," Foggy told her. "Way too weird."

"Yeah," she said. "I thought you'd freak out at the idea of giving up control."

Foggy started grabbing his own clothes from the floor of the bedroom. "I have no problem giving up control. Would I be with you if I did?"

She smiled at him sweetly, but he could sense something vaguely malicious behind it. "Actually, forget the during sex part. You should try it out for other stuff. You know, do the walk a mile in someone else's shoes thing. It might be good for you."

Foggy ignored her and began to tie his shoelaces.

"Nah, you're right," Marci said. "Better not. You wouldn't last a day if you couldn't see."

Foggy turned to look at her. She was seated in front of the mirror, re-applying her lipstick. She pressed her lips together, then against the back of her hand to remove the excess. "Would too," he said.

Marci grinned. "Wanna bet?"

Foggy opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. "…No."

"How come?"

"Because I know how your mind works, and it's ridiculous. Not to mention offensive to Matt."

Marci shook her head. "How is it offensive?"

He frowned, trying to decide whether she was actually that insensitive, or if she was just messing with him. "How about in every way possible?" he said. "How would you like it if someone decided to try on your life for fun?"

"Oh, trust me Foggy, you won't be having any fun. Me on the other hand…"

"Really not the point."

Marci huffed. "I'm really liking this idea though, Foggy. What if I can get Matt to agree?"

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Never going to happen. In fact, I'm so sure he won't agree, that I'll take your bet."

"You're sure? Because I never actually told you the terms. One whole day, morning to midnight. You lose, and you're my slave for the week."

"And if I win?"

"The same, but you get to be the fun kind of slave."

Foggy shook his head. "Okay, whatever. Matt's not going to agree."

"Great," Marci told him, "because I talked to him yesterday and he already did."

"I can't believe you agreed to this," Foggy hissed.

Matt shrugged apologetically. "I thought we were talking theoretically. And I said only if you agreed. I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to do it."

Foggy sighed. "In other words, she played us both. She's an evil genius."

Marci appeared unconcerned about their discussion of her. "Just shows what a great lawyer I'm going to make some day," she said. "You ready for this, Foggy?"

"Not really," he said. "Anyway, you said morning to midnight. You never said anything abut the night before."

"Well, if I trusted you to remember not to open your eyes when you wake up tomorrow, that'd be fine," Marci told him. "But I don't, and I'm fairly sure this stretchy bandage will stay put while you're in bed, so why not?"

Sitting on his own bed, Foggy noticed Matt shifting a little uncomfortably. "You don't have to do this," he said. "Especially if you think you're doing it for me."

"Actually, I'm doing it for me," Foggy told him. "It's a matter of principle. I took the bet, even it she did cheat, I can't back out."

"He really can't," Marci added. "Not unless he wants to suffer the consequences of losing." She raised the bandage to his face. "Eyes closed, Foggy-bear. Tell me when it's thick enough to make it dark."

Foggy sat very still on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing through eyelids forced closed. The door clicked as Marci left. He licked his lips. "Hey, Matt?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think she's really gone? She didn't just open and close the door from this side?"

Matt laughed. "No, she's gone. You can take it off now."

Foggy raised his hands to his face and touched the blindfold. "Better not," he said. "She'd know. Evil genius, remember?"

Matt didn't answer. The springs of his mattress creaked, as he got into bed.

Foggy stayed where he was, suddenly very aware that the only thing he could locate with any accuracy was the bed he was sitting on. "Hey, Matt?" he said again.

"Yeah?"

"Does this piss you off? Because it would me."

A rustling of his ridiculous silk bedsheets told Foggy that he had lay down ready to sleep. "No, not really." he said. "It's weird though. You know that, right?"

Foggy sighed. He got to his feet, carefully felt his way to the right end of his bed and got in. "Oh yeah," he said. "But what choice did I have?"

"Oh, absolutely," Matt said. "Marci bet you, how could you say no? It's not like you're a fully grown man studying to be a lawyer or anything, is it?"

Foggy smiled, feeling slightly ridiculous. "A bet is a bet, it's a matter of principle however old you are."

"If you say so." Matt agreed.

The blindfold felt tight and secure on his face, not particularly uncomfortable, but there was no danger of him forgetting it was there. Or of it accidentally coming off in the night. Tomorrow was not going to be fun.

"Hey, Matt?" Foggy said again. "Don't suppose you know whether Marci switched the light off?"

Matt either ignored him, or he was already asleep, Foggy wasn't sure which. Either way, he quickly drifted off himself.

Foggy woke confused and uncomfortable. He panicked momentarily, before piecing things back together and remembering what was happening. Still half addled with sleep, he pressed the light on his digital watch to check the time, then stopped instantly, feeling slightly ridiculous.

"Matt?" he whispered, not sure of the time, and whether he should expect to find his roommate still asleep or already up and about.

He was met by silence.

"Matt?" he tried again, a little louder this time. Still nothing.

Frustrated, he sat up. The bandage covering the upper part of his face felt uncomfortable now, not so much the physical feeling of it, but a claustrophobic feeling coming from somewhere deep inside him. He raised his hands to his face and slipped the tips of his fingers underneath the stretchy material.

A click as the door opened. He snatched his hand away as though he had been caught doing something he shouldn't.

Someone entered the room, closely followed by the scent of coffee. "Morning."

Matt. Foggy relaxed just slightly.

He listened to Matt cross the room. He placed a paper cup on the desk near his computer, then approached Foggy. "Got you a coffee. Hold out your hand."

Foggy did, and Matt found it with his own, before carefully pressing a warm paper cup into his palm. Foggy's fingers closed around it gratefully.

"Not taken it off then?"

"I refuse to lose a bet to Marci Stahl."

Matt made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "I ran into her at the coffee shop. She wants to meet you there for breakfast at ten."

"What?" Foggy twitched nervously. "That wasn't part of the deal."

"You thought you'd spend the day in bed?"

Foggy shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah." He raised his watch to check the time again, and instantly dropped it again. "What time is it now?"

"A little after nine."

He nodded. "Okay, great. That gives me time to…" he broke off. Shit. "How am I supposed to get ready like this?"

"Carefully," Matt told him.

"That's it? Carefully? No words of advice, or offers of assistance, you're just going to let me lose on my wardrobe without any help?"

He could hear the smirk in Matt's voice when he answered. "Yep."

"Can I just say, you suck. What about getting there?"

Matt hesitated, then acquiesced. "I'll help with that, it's a matter of public safety. But the other stuff you're on your own. I wouldn't want you to cheat on a bet. Like you said, it's a matter of principle."

Foggy raised the hand not holding his coffee and aimed a middle finger salute somewhere in Matt's approximate direction. He took a sip of the drink, then put the cup down and it immediately disappeared into the void, probably never to be found again. Finally, he got to his feet, waved his arms out ahead of him and took a careful, shuffling step.

"Oh my God, that has to be the funniest thing I've ever seen." Marci was already at the coffee shop when they arrived, Foggy holding onto Matt's arm in a bizarre reversal of the way he had recently learned to lead him.

Foggy gritted his teeth. "Nice try, you won't make me look that easily."

"I'm not trying to make you look at anything, I'm mocking that ridiculous outfit," Marci told him.

Foggy let go of Matt's arm and self consciously touched his clothing. He had thought it was a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. You couldn't go wrong with that.

He reached for Matt again, but the elbow wasn't where he had thought it would be. He tried again, and banged his fingers on the back of a chair at the table where Marci was sitting. He pulled it out, and sat down.

"I took pity on you," Marci told him. "Thought I'd spare you having to go buy something." She slid a plate across the table to him. "Coffee's on the way. Yours too, Matt."

Matt sat down next to him. Foggy reached out and explored the plate with careful fingers. He found a muffin, raised it to his face and took an experimental sniff. Blueberry. "You haven't done anything to this, have you?" he asked suspiciously.

"Please. There are better ways to mess with you."

He bit into the muffin, and it did taste fine.

"So, how about after this you split off from the expert and come for a walk with me?" Marci suggested.

Foggy bit his lip. It wasn't like there would actually be much that Matt could do to protect him from Marci's malicious streak, and he had already flat out told him that he wasn't going to help him, but somehow having him around made him feel safer. He sighed. It wasn't like he really had a choice in the matter. "Sounds like fun," he said, in a tone of voice that said the opposite.

They had been walking around campus for so long that Foggy had almost gotten used to being led around with no idea of where he was. When his stomach rumbled, Marci decided it was time for lunch, and the only time that he actually panicked just a little was when she left him waiting on a patch of grass outside, while she bought sandwiches.

A tap on the shoulder made him jump violently and he jerked around as though he could check who it was.

"Relax, it's me," Matt told him.

Foggy did relax. "How the hell do you do that?" he asked.

He heard Matt sit down next to him. "I recognized your breathing," he said. "It sounded like you were having a panic attack."

"Well, I'm not," Foggy told him.

"That's good."

Foggy reached for his backpack that he had placed next to him, to take a swig of his water. His hand hit grass. He knew it had been there. Knew it. He tried again, a little further away, and again. Nothing. Worried, he tried the other side. Nothing. "Shit," he said.

Matt laughed and dropped the bag into his lap. "Sorry," he said. "I couldn't resist."

Foggy scowled and opened the bag. It was empty. The bottle landed on his knee too. Foggy's scowl deepened. "You're trying to make this difficult," he said. "You're trying to make this difficult _on purpose_. Why would you do that?"

"Can you blame me?" Matt said. He grabbed the bottle from Foggy's hands and took a swig, the handed it back to him. "I've got an essay to finish," he said. "I'll see you later." He disappeared.

Foggy sighed, put his bottle back in the bag and hooked one of the straps around his hand. He waited for Marci to return.

"I have to admit, I'm impressed you've lasted this long," Marci told him. They walked hand in hand through the emptying campus, Marci watching out for obstacles and Foggy feeling almost confident as he put one foot in front of another, one hand still in front of him, but trusting her not to let him trip or fall.

Foggy grinned. "Told you I could do it."

"Hmm, but it hasn't exactly been a fair test," she said. "After all, you've had someone helping you the whole day."

"Well, the alternative was for me to spend the whole day in my room, which i would have been fine with, by the way," Foggy said, "In fact, that was what I was planning to do."

Marci stopped walking, Foggy took another step, then turned around slightly to face her. "I don't like losing bets, Foggy," she said.

He shrugged. "Me neither, that's why I'm planning on winning it."

Marci, let go of his hand, placed both arms around him and kissed him gently. "Foggy-bear, one of these days you'll realize, I always win," she said. Then, suddenly and without warning, she was gone.

Foggy reached out a hand and found nothing but air. "Marci?" he said.

No response.

"Marci, c'mon! That's not funny!"

He swept an arm around, hoping to find her, but if she was there, watching, she gave no sign. He knew he was on campus, but he had no idea where he was.

"This is cheating, Marci!" he called. "The bet is null and void. You hear me?"

Angry, but with no other choice, he reached for the blindfold. His fingers found the safety pin at the back that she had used to fix it in place, and he started to open it.

A hand closed around his, stopping him. "Don't."

Matt.

"She's gone," Matt told him. "She ran off, I think in the direction of her dorm."

"And you're here again. Not that I'm complaining, but why?"

Matt grabbed Foggy's hand and placed it on his elbow in the same way that he had led him that morning. "I thought she might pull something like this. I've been following you around."

"Seriously? And Marci didn't know?"

Matt laughed. "I don't know, you'd have to ask her. I tried to keep out of sight, but it's not always easy for me to know where that is."

"And why are you helping me? You certainly weren't earlier."

"Leaving you there was a low blow. I know you could've just taken the blindfold off, but still. I've decided you're going to win the bet."

"I know the whole point of this was just to win a kind of offensive bet against Marci," Foggy said, "but I have to be honest, I think I've gained a bit of insight today. I have no idea how you do what you do, but you're kind of amazing, Matt."

"And you're one of the most stubborn people I've ever known," Matt told him. He placed a hand at the back of Foggy's head and touched his lips to his. "It's kind of a turn on."

Foggy smiled. "That's a very weird thing to be turned on by," he said.

Matt kissed him, pushing him back onto the bed as he did. "It's midnight, by the way. You've won, you can take it off." He unfastened Foggy's belt, unzipped the fly and snaked a hand inside. "Unless you want to gain a bit more insight first, that is."


End file.
